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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David R who wrote (248896)	4/17/2002 7:19:14 PM
From: Kevin Rose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

I think we agree that totalitarian governments discourage independent thought. Please reread my post. I believe there are, as with most issues, extremes at either end of the spectrum. Those who advocate rote memorization as the main education tool on one end, those who advocate 'free thinking' with little actual content on the other. As with most things, I am a moderate in the middle. My initial comment was about how certain things should not be taught as rote learning. I have consistently stated that some things need to be memorized, but that there needs to be a greater emphasis on a deeper understanding of the material that memorization does not give. Your example of software engineering fits this thinking. Knowing the basic syntax is required, even though there are now intelligent interactive tools that assist with basic syntax and constructs. However, I cannot count the number of programmers I've known who know the syntax and haven't the slightest understanding of what is going on. So, you know how they program? They copy other pieces of programs, and cobble them together, without understanding what they are doing or even why it works. That is the crux of the problem I was originally highlighting. Education is not education if there is no understanding behind the facts.